Homily on the Withered Fig Tree and on the Parable of the Vineyard (St. John of Damascus)

Homily on the Withered Fig Tree and on the Parable of the Vineyard 

Second Discourse

By St. John of Damascus

I am moved to speak by the personal Word of God the Father — He who did not depart from the bosom of the Father and was ineffably conceived in the womb of the Virgin; He who became for my sake what I am, He who is impassible in His divinity yet clothed Himself with a passible body like mine; He who rides upon the cherubic chariots and upon the earth mounts a colt (cf. Matt. 21:7–9).

The King of glory — He who together with the Father and the Spirit is praised by the Seraphim as holy and receives the lisping praises of children from their innocent tongues; He who is God and has the form of a servant and took the form of a servant; He who is immaterial and invisible God and yet accepted to assume a visible and tangible body; He who willingly went to the Passion, in order to grant me dispassion.

For when He saw man, the work of His hands, deceived by the guile of the serpent — man whom He had formed according to His image and likeness, yet who had fallen into the transgression of His commandment and had become subject to corruption and liable to death — He who is full of compassion could not endure the loss of the one whom He loved. Rather, He called him back in many ways to return and repentance, chastening him as an ungrateful servant, as a child of immature mind, in many and various ways, and devising every means to shake off the tyranny of the despot and return to his Creator.

Holy Monday Teaches Us a Fundamental Spiritual Law

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

“Jacob mourned the loss of Joseph, while the noble one sat in a chariot, honored as a king; for, having not been enslaved to the pleasures of the Egyptian woman, he was glorified by Him who sees the hearts of men and bestows an incorruptible crown” (Kontakion of Orthros, Great Monday).

The kontakion refers to one of the two themes that our Church commemorates on Great Monday: the person of the all-comely Joseph, son of the Patriarch Jacob, who prefigures — prophesies without words — the Lord Jesus Christ; his freedom from resentment and his humility point to the very author of our faith. The other commemorated event is the fig tree that the Lord cursed because of its barrenness — a symbol of the barrenness of the Jewish Synagogue of His time and, by extension, the barrenness of every person who is considered a believer in God throughout the ages, whose lack of fruits in life, that is, virtues, results precisely in his withering, as a cutting off from God.

What we particularly wish to emphasize, then, is the spiritual law that we see set forth by the Holy Hymnographer — a law that is grounded in and continually proclaimed by Jesus Christ Himself. What is this law? That what a person does, whether positively or negatively, brings about a corresponding result. Does one perform what is good? The Lord will look upon him with favor, glorifying him and offering him the “incorruptible crown,” that is, His very grace — the flooding of His presence within one’s being. Does one deny God, in the sense of turning passionately toward evil and sin? He will “receive” the corresponding outcome: the Lord will turn His face away from him, which means He will withdraw His grace, leaving the person exposed to the workings of the Evil One, literally at the mercy of his destructive intentions. For certainly no one remains “uncovered” and “ownerless,” alone with himself. Man is always “serving” somewhere. Thus, either he “serves” the Lord and is thereby exalted as His son, abiding within His blessed and beatifying embrace, being one with Him; or he “serves” his passions and the Evil One who stirs and inflames them, and thus becomes a slave to the most turbulent being in creation, already tasting that being’s hell even in this life.

Holy Patriarch Eutychios of Constantinople in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Saint Eutychios was born around 512 A.D. in the village of Theia Kome in Phrygia. His father was a general in the army of Belisarius. Saint Eutychios became a monk at the age of 30 through the Metropolitan of Amaseia, and he lived in Constantinople as the apocrisiarius (representative) of the Metropolitan of Amaseia, eventually attaining the ecclesiastical rank of Archimandrite.

Saint Eutychios was held in high esteem by Patriarch Menas, and after the latter’s death, the Saint was elected Patriarch at the suggestion of Emperor Justinian. During the time of his first Patriarchate, specifically from May 5 to June 21 of the year 553 A.D., the Fifth Ecumenical Synod was convened.

In 564 A.D., he came into conflict with the Emperor over the heresy of the Aphthartodocetists. Saint Eutychios condemned this heresy despite the pressure exerted by the Emperor. On January 22, 565 A.D., while he was celebrating the Divine Liturgy for the feast of Saint Timothy, soldiers arrested him. Following this, he was deposed and exiled — first to Prinkipos and later to Amaseia in Pontus.

After the death of his successor, Patriarch John Scholasticus, the new Emperor Justin II recalled Saint Eutychios to the throne, and he returned to Constantinople in October of 577 A.D.

"Behold, the Bridegroom Comes..." (Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Mani)

By Metropolitan Chrysostomos III of Mani

Compunctious, filled with sacred awe, stands before us the Holy and Great Week. It is Great because of the great events which it so vividly and movingly brings to our remembrance: Jesus Christ, who comes to His voluntary Passion. And this is for our salvation from sin.

The inspired hymnography of the Church begins with the beautiful troparion: “Behold, the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night, and blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching; and unworthy again is he whom He shall find slothful…”

Prologue in Sermons: April 6

 

 

The Wise Peacemaker

April 6

(A discourse about a monk who humbled his brother for the sake of the cell.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

The seventh Beatitude reads: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9).

What does this mean? “It means that those who desire blessedness must not only behave toward all in a friendly manner and give no cause for discord, but must also, as much as possible, put an end to disagreements that arise among others and strive to reconcile those who are at enmity with one another. To peacemakers is promised, as a reward, the gracious name of sons of God and, without doubt, the degree of blessedness worthy of that name” (Catechism). Yet the labor of a peacemaker is not easy. Indeed, how difficult it is, for example, to restore broken friendship, to unite enemies, to extinguish between them mutual malice and hatred! Here, on the part of the peacemaker, there is required ardent love for one’s neighbor, often self-sacrifice, the wisdom of a serpent, and experience. And do you have all this? If not, let us learn how to act in matters of peacemaking from the saints of God.

On Palm Sunday (St. Chrysostomos of Smyrna)

On Palm Sunday

By the Holy Hieromartyr Chrysostomos, Metropolitan of Smyrna

“Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel” (John 12:13).

Truly a royal feast do we celebrate today; a royal visitation do we receive, and all things must be prepared in a royal manner, for where there is the presence of a king, there also preparation, order, and reception must be worthy both of the greatness of the feast and of the high dignity of the royal visitor.

To such a magnificent — indeed, one might say, God-fitting — preparation and reception, we are called from the depths of the ages by the ancient voices of the Prophets, which are also repeated by the innocent children, who, holding palm branches in their hands, today receive the coming King of the New Jerusalem, crying aloud and saying: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; proclaim, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, your King comes, meek and bringing salvation.” And, raising their voices still more, they cry out: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.”

The Prophets call us to see what they desired to see and did not see, to hear what they longed to hear and did not hear — to behold that salvation and grace have appeared, that the King has come, and that the Conqueror of death is present.

Homily for Palm Sunday - The Entry of the Lord Into Jerusalem (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

Homily for Palm Sunday 

The Entry of the Lord Into Jerusalem 

On the Fulfillment of the Prophecies Concerning Christ and on Spiritual Blindness

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

“And Jesus, finding a young donkey, sat on it, as it is written: ‘Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt’” (John 12:14–15).

Beloved faithful,

If we read in the Holy and Divine Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, we find that all the prophecies that were spoken about our Savior Jesus Christ — who, in the fullness of time, came to the human race — were fulfilled with great wonder in their time. Thus we see that the holy prophets, through revelation from the Holy Spirit, foretold thousands of years in advance that our Savior Jesus Christ would be born according to the flesh from the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15); that He would be born from the seed of Abraham (Genesis 22:17–18); that He would be of the lineage of David according to the flesh (Isaiah 9:6).

Likewise, for the day of this great and most radiant feast of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, we see fulfilled the prophecy of the Holy Prophet Zechariah, who said: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your King comes to you, righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).

Homily for the Lord's Entry Into Jerusalem (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

Homily for the Lord's Entry Into Jerusalem 

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

I congratulate you all on the feast of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem! On Palm Sunday! On the Sunday of Branches! Today the grace of the Holy Spirit has gathered us to meet the Lord, who is going to His voluntary sufferings for our salvation — to conquer death by death, to grant us incorruption, to deliver us from the terrible pit in the valley of death in which there is no water. Into this pit the souls of all people were to be cast, and the Lord leads us out from there to the ever-radiant heights of the heavenly plains. The Lord comes today so that we may blossom in soul. In our hands are red willow branches, reminding us of the blood of Jesus Christ; their blossoms remind us of the flowering of our souls through the blood of the Lord. The palm branches, with which the inhabitants of the city greeted Christ, are also a symbol of the Entry of the Lord Jesus; they symbolize God’s victory over death and corruption, victory over human sin, over the rebellion of the human race, which was not suppressed but healed by the Blood of the Lord.

That we, as Scripture says, may become flourishing: “And your bones shall flourish like young greenery” (Isaiah 66:14).

Homily for Palm Sunday (St. Sergius Mechev)

Homily for Palm Sunday 

By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

Today one sister, to whom I did not allow to come to the church because of illness, said to me: “Today the service is so good.”

There is no bad service. All are good, for no service is ever repeated; each is unique. True, in our time we ourselves often make them similar to one another, omitting certain parts and inserting entirely inappropriate concert-style hymns.

What, then, does today’s divine service give us? Today we have come not only to stand with candles and willow branches. We have come to meet the Lord — but not as the Jewish children met Him, who cried out to Him: “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest” (Matt. 21:9). For we know what they did not know.